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caffeinatedTopic: Other Movie Genres
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3571: It's Christmas Night... After we both took in a film on Christmas Day. Which has turned out to be part of our annual celebration of Christmas for us. No matter if we are home like this year, or on a year end vacation last like year! This year, Tina chose the film. Which was actually in the genre of films that she likes to watch this time of year. Since there wasn't any 'James Bond' film out, she chose 'Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol'. My other choice was 'Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows'. However, after seeing the first of this new series of films, she wasn't interested, even though it had Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.! The first one was too 'Wild, Wild, West' like for her tastes! Here's Tina's 'Take' on the film we just watched, which will be posted tomorrow, Monday:
Outside of the MI franchise, I haven't enjoyed Tom Cruise in a movie since 'The Firm'. Not a big or even a little Tom Cruise fan. But I never miss the crazy ride of Mission Impossible and 'MI4: Ghost Protocol' delivers this Christmas. These are the darkest days for Ethan's team since Mr. Phelps went bad in the first flick. Yet, this movie isn't bleak. In fact, strangely enough it has several strangely feel-good moments. I attribute this to the involvement of Brad Bird (The Incredible, UP). In particular, the end of the movie felt like the end of the franchise with all the summing up and pseudo happy ending. If you've seen the ads, you know that the President invokes "ghost protocol" disavowing MIF when Ethan Hunt is set up to take the fall for the bombing of the Kremlin. With the US and former Soviet Union at the brink of nuclear war, Ethan and his new team are on the hunt for stolen nuclear launch codes and a mad nuclear strategist who's gone over to the dark side. Why do we fork over our movie dollars to catch every MI movie on the big-screen? Action scenes, in particular, crazy Tom Cruise action scenes. If you're like me, you won't be disappointed. In fact, you'll probably yell out loud in shock at least once. And, possibly, claw your arm rest and be on the edge or your seat (literally) for several minutes as Michael was - technically, he was at the edge of my seat. Tom Cruise scaling the world's tallest building in Dubai is gripping stuff. Tom Cruise on crack, on Oprah's couch, crazy action stuff. Ethan's new team misses the banter of the old team. Simon Pegg as Benji carries the load, here and makes the movie enjoyable. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) lays an analyst (or is he?) who conveniently answers the mystery of Ethan's wife (or does he?). Your mission, should you choose to accept it: watch this move on the big-screen. Don't think about it too much, just enjoy the crazy action. My rating: 9.0 VERY FINE / NEAR MINT (VF/NM) out of a 10.0 comic book grading scale. ~Tina LoSasso Okay... Since it was Tina's choice of film to see, I thought I would present her 'Take' on the film first. Now it's 'My Take':
We have seen all four of the 'new' Mission Impossible films with Tom Cruise, although the first one with Mr. Phelps disappointed me with the twists that came about. But I didn't let that stop me from seeing this film with Tina! Besides the first one was back in 1996! Here is the link to the Wikipedia entry for the series... Be aware that are multiple spoilers in that wiki entry! And yes, there are now plans for a 5th entry in this series... Due to the commercial success (so far) of this film! I'm showing a film poster of actress Paula Patton as Agent Jane Carter for my choice of featured actor. Yes, the other actors did a fine job in the film, but too often the lead female character is too pretty or too demure to have a good onscreen prescence as Paula did. She was believeable as an IMF agent, and looked darn good in evening dress for that scene! Tom Cruise was fine once again as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, as he has been in the previous films. Seeing Josh Holloway as Agent Trevor Hanaway was fun. I enjoyed his role in the 'LOST' TV show series... Which is his tie-in with J.J. Abrams, who is co-producer of this film. Jeremy Renner as William Brandt, IMF Secretary's chief analyst, did a fine job, and I liked the way he was used in the film. But no spoiler alert here! (Addendum: Except that at Christmas Dinner, that we just finished 7:15 PM Sunday night... Tina told me that Jeremy Renner plays Clint Barton / Hawkeye in the upcoming 2012 Avengers film! WoW! That makes me even more excited about the 2012 film, as I can see Jeremy playing Hawkeye now!)! Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, an IMF technical field agent and part of Hunt's team was used quite effectively. Vladimir Mashkov as Anatoly Sidorov, a Russian intelligence operative following Hunt and his team played a key role in the film. Plus did a fine job of doing it! Léa Seydoux as Sabine Moreau, a French assassin for hire, played a key role in the film, but didn't have much screen time, or so it seemed to me. It was nice seeing Tom Wilkinson as the IMF Secretary again! I like the continuation of that character in the series! The storyline kept me on the edge of my seat in the theater! Seriously! As Tina could tell you! I loved the action scenes of the hotel in Dubai! Great! So were a lot of other scenes in Europe, Dubai, and Mumbai in India! Beautiful photography, and no wasted scenes! Well, until the end of the movie... Which after a very fast paced film from start till that point... It seemed an awkward way of stopping the film. Good thing for the very final scene! Due to the slowness at the end, except for the next to final scene, I'm giving this film a Comic Book Grade of NEAR MINT MINUS (NM-) 9.2 out of a possible 10.0 comic book grading scale. But... This film has to be seen in the theater on the BIG SCREEN to truly appreciate the work that has gone into it! And yes, you may be wondering.. Where is the comic book connection to this film? Well, there isn't a 'direct tie-in', just that I enjoyed reading and collecting the Mission Impossible comics books that were printed years ago when the MI TV Show was on! Here's a link to those via the GCD (Grand Comics Database) web site. Please note, there were five issues published by Dell Comics from May of 1967 - October of 1969. Plus, if you are okay with knowing too much about the film before going, to see what else in it, you could read the stand alone Wikipedia entry for this 4th Mission Impossible film. But if not, the whole entry is a spoiler alert!! Hope you all had as much fun on Christmas Day as we did going to the movies! ~Michael D Hamersky On Comics!
My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,571 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog! BTW, You can 'follow' this blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app link! We currently have over 2,654 'Followers'! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! ~ Michael D Hamersky Note: My online 'Local' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item(s) that was mentioned here today...!If I have it... You can find it 'Under The Big Top Of Comics' at: http://www.ComicBooksCircus.com/ Web Page Note: This blog post is written for the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safari, Netscape, Firefox and the other browsers serve the page up differently, sorry about that! The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. Note: Your computer's resoulution may be set differently, but the above resolution is the most commonly used resolution at the time of this blog post. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners.
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Review: Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol
First... I knew from the trailers that if we were going to see this film, we would benefit from seeing it on the BIG SCREEN, even though we have a decent sized TV set at home.
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My thanks to Al Wiesner for showing me this issue at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con. Here is